Usual disclaimer: This includes either games I’m interested in, games that may be/become popular and random stuff in-between… Basically anything I feel bears mentioning for any reason. Probably missing stuff because game companies are shit about announcing release dates nowadays (and good at delaying games near release), and I’m not gonna dig through the hundreds of trash indie games that come out on Steam every day to find the one or 2 okay ones that pop up occasionally. So if there’s no/few indie games here, it’s pretty normal.

Also I’m skipping the boatload of indie game ports and third-party ports on Switch that will probably come out. I guess the more noteworthy ones this month would be… Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 Plus and Payday 2? Pac-Man CE2 sucks though.Read more…

Alright, I’m done with the 2017-2018 transition posts. They’re the reason this post was late, it would’ve been weird to put it in-between that stuff. I do have a couple other posts I want to write soon, reviews that I didn’t get to writing earlier (and one game I do need to finish before I review it). So I’m trying to keep this up.

So January… Not a lot of note is coming out, but there’s a few cool releases. We have 6 multiplats, 3 PS4 games (I’m pushing here, one’s an import) and a 3DS release. A slow start for the year, but hopefully things will get better as the year goes on.

Usual disclaimer: This includes either games I’m interested in, games that may be/become popular and random stuff in-between… Basically anything I feel bears mentioning for any reason. Probably missing stuff because game companies are shit about announcing release dates nowadays (and good at delaying games near release), and I’m not gonna dig through the hundreds of trash indie games that come out on steam every day to find the one or 2 okay ones that pop up occasionally. So if there’s no/few indie games here, it’s pretty normal.

Also I’m skipping what is likely a bunch of indie game ports on Switch, there’s a few cool ones this month like Furi.

2017 will likely be remembered as one of the top years in gaming, being put alongside other juggernauts likes 1991, 1997/98, 2001 and 2007. So many great games, some of the best examples of several genres, some games that will remain on top of the highest-rated games ever, forever. So how do you follow up a year like 2017? Honestly, I don’t think you can. But hopefully it still tries.

So I figured, now that I posted my GotY post, I would go and talk about my most hyped games of 2018. I’ll make it a top almost-10, because why not. I’ll also include a list of most noteworthy upcoming games, separating them between games I’m personally interested in for whatever reason and games I’m not particularly excited for. I may put some notes next to some of them.

Rules for this post: there are no rules. I will put in games that I’m pretty sure are coming in 2018, though I may get some wrong. I mean, my 2017 list had Scalebound as one of my most hyped games and look where that lead. Know that I am gonna make assumptions here.

So let’s go!

(quick note: this was written before the probably-coming-soon January Nintendo Direct, so if anything cool was announced there that fucks this post up… whatever)Read more…

So 2017 was a pretty interesting year. On the non-gaming side for me it was fairly quiet though the year started (literally a few days into the year) with my father being diagnosed with cancer, and subsequently my father beating the shit out of said cancer and being cancer-free within a few months. Also I built a gaming PC on my own for the first time (before that I’d pay NCIX extra to build for me, never again). It’s super easy, everyone can and should do it… maybe I should do a quick post about that.

As far as gaming goes though… 2014, 2015, 2016 have all been pretty lame years for gaming. Game of the Year posts from me were difficult to write for the last few years because… Well, when there’s a year where there aren’t even 5 games good enough for the GotY award, you know it was a bad year. That said, 2017 said “fuck that here’s a ton of games” and I could’ve easily made a decent GotY post halfway through the year, with completely different games than what are on the list now, and it would still be a solid list. I did not have time to stop playing games this year, because there was always new stuff coming out. 2017 was a HUGE year for games, it was pure insanity.

So yeah… let’s go as per usual. A quick rant, then 5 almost-winners followed by the top GotY winner and finally a boatload of honorable mentions. Haven’t quite played enough trash this year for a “Trash of the Year” segment… So I won’t do that this time.

Rules: only games I played, and only games that came out this year (so no remasters or late ports, remakes are a grey area but I avoid them… example: the Crash trilogy wouldn’t be valid, but the Samus Returns remake would be). I may still put some as honorable mentions but they’re not valid for GotY candidacy.

Note: There’s several noteworthy 2017 games I haven’t played like Prey, Pyre, Evil Within 2, South Park, Hellblade, Battle Chasers: Nightwar, Divinity: Original Sin II, Torment: Tides of Numenera, Hand of Fate 2, For Honor, Dragon Quest Heroes II and a handful of others, so if you think they’re GotY and I don’t name them, know that I hold no ill will for these games.

Other note: I avoided games I knew would be shit like Shadows of War, Destiny 2, whatever Assassin’s Creed came out, Battlefront 2, Mass Effect Andromeda and several others… and know that I do hold ill will for these.

I’m kinda late on this, but that’s fine. I did manage to post more than usual this month which is nice. Lot of stuff was coming out, so there was lots I needed to talk about. Good times. But with December things are more than slowing down, after the whole year being crazy it’s somehow in the holiday season that nothing all that big comes out… almost.

Usual disclaimer: This includes either games I’m interested in, games that may be/become popular and random stuff in-between… Basically anything I feel bears mentioning for any reason. Probably missing stuff because game companies are shit about announcing release dates nowadays (and good at delaying games near release), and I’m not gonna dig through the hundreds of trash indie games that come out on steam every day to find the one or 2 okay ones that pop up occasionally, unless some higher-profile indie things I care about comes out. So if there’s no/few indie games here, it’s pretty normal.Read more…

Well I’m posting this slightly early. You know, Mario coming out and all, so I might as well push this before I have no time to play or write anything. Plus I have Wolfenstein 2 coming out on the same day, and several other games coming out close to the same time.. This’ll be rough. That said, I also have another post or 2 I kinda wanna do before that happens, so hopefully those’ll happen soon too.

So November… not quite as big as October due to not having Mario, but there’s still several interesting games. I’m grabbing a small handful here.

Usual disclaimer: This includes either games I’m interested in, games that may be/become popular and random stuff in-between… Basically anything I feel bears mentioning for any reason. Probably missing stuff because game companies are shit about announcing release dates nowadays (and good at delaying games near release), and I’m not gonna dig through the hundreds of trash indie games that come out on steam every month to find the one or 2 okay ones that pop up occasionally, unless some higher-profile indie things I care about comes out. So if there’s no/few indie games here, it’s pretty normal.Read more…

Usual disclaimer: This includes either games I’m interested in, games that may be/become popular and random stuff in-between… Basically anything I feel bears mentioning for any reason. Probably missing stuff because game companies are shit about announcing release dates nowadays (and good at delaying games near release), and I’m not gonna dig through the hundreds of indie games that come out on steam every month to find the one or 2 okay ones that pop up occasionally, unless some higher-profile indie things I care about comes out. So if there’s no/few indie games here, it’s pretty normal.

It’s so nice for Metroid to be back. Other M was a good while ago now and it was unfairly maligned. It wasn’t amazing, but it was better than you’ve heard. At E3 2017 Nintendo made the big reveal, Metroid Prime 4 coming to Switch. Awesome. Then they followed it up with “by the way here’s a complete remake of Metroid 2”. That was pretty amazing for Metroid fans. Not only is there a new Prime coming, but there were in fact 2 Metroid games coming out, when it seemed like Nintendo might have abandoned the series altogether after Other M (and some other thing that wasn’t Metroid).

There was an element of worry here, with MercurySteam being the developers. They made all 3 Castlevania Lord of Shadow game, including Mirror of Fate which was a Metroidvania style of game, and all these games sucked horribly. But I didn’t let their past sins influence my hype. I figured maybe all they needed was Nintendo’s guidance to end up doing something actually good.

Metroid 2 itself was a game that was cool, but hard to play, especially now… The Game Boy had a tiny low-res screen, so to have the detailed graphics that game had also meant you couldn’t see very far around Samus’ sprite. It’s pretty hard to go back to that game. So a remake is a very suitable thing. There WAS a remake called AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake) but it was fan-made and Nintendo did what all companies are legally compelled to do and shut it down (though they should’ve done so 10 years ago when it was starting development, not be dicks and wait 10 years for it to be ready). With their own remake coming, it made sense to remove the fan-made one, beyond the legal reasons of protecting their IP.

We’re getting right around when the biggest releases of the year come out. Not quite there yet, but getting there. I did manage to get several posts out despite the fairly slow August, and I do still have a few things to post about during September, so I’m pretty happy about that.

Usual disclaimer: This includes either games I’m interested in, games that may be/become popular and random stuff in-between… Basically anything I feel bears mentioning for any reason. Probably missing stuff because game companies are shit about announcing release dates nowadays (and good at delaying games near release), and I’m not gonna dig through the hundreds of indie games that come out every month to find the one or 2 okay ones that pop up occasionally, unless some higher-profile indie things I care about come out. So if there’s no/few indie games here, it’s pretty normal.